Zohrab uttered a sound like a hiss, and placed the cold back of his sabre across her throat, implying thereby, "Silence, or death;" and at that instant, four Afghan horsemen came galloping up, and reined in their nags.
"Bismillah," said the leader, a venerable, burly, and silver-bearded man, in a huge turban.
"Bismillah," responded Zohrab, using also the expression of salutation customary to the country (and which means no more than "good evening" or "good e'en" may do with us), yet regarding the stranger with a somewhat resentful and tiger-like expression of eye for his unwelcome interruption.
"What, Zohrab Zubberdust, is this thou?" exclaimed the other.
"Shabash—it is I; and you—are Nouradeen Lal!" said the would-be lover, as he recognised his acquaintance, the hill-farmer, whose ploughman, perforce, Waller had been; "whence come you?"
"From Cabul, where I have been with many an arroba of corn for the Sirdir, who expects to be besieged by the Kaffirs from Jellalabad. Oh! and so you are at your old tricks again," continued the farmer, with a somewhat unoriental burst of laughter; "you are not content to wait for the spouses of musk and amber in their couches of pearl—the black-eyed girls with their scarfs of green!"
"Allah Keerem, but he is fortunate," said another, looking admiringly on Mabel; "most fortunate! She is fair and white as the virgins of paradise can be."
"But her cry sounded like the bay of a goorg to the rising moon; and we thought you were an afreet—the Ghoul Babian, or some such horror; for here are graves close by!"
"Nouradeen Lal is not complimentary," said the other speaker, who, by his steel cap, spear, and shield of rhinoceros hide, seemed to be a Hazir-bashi, or one of Ackbar's body-guard, "if he compare the damsel's voice to the cry of a wolf."
"But why did she cry? You were not ill-using her, I hope," said the old farmer, peering down at Mabel's face from under his broad circular turban.